Multiple MMO developers/publishers named in patent suit

A New York-based holdings company claims that the technology used to to create …

Some of the biggest names in the MMO business have been named in a patent lawsuit that claims their multiplayer technology violates patents that allow players to experience the same digital environments simultaneously. New York-based Paltalk Holdings, Inc. has named Sony, NCsoft, Activision Blizzard, Turbine Studios, and Jagex Ltd. as defendants in the case.

The suit was filed in Marshall, Texas; a typical starting point for patent legal lawsuits because it's considered plaintiff-friendly in such cases. The basis for the complaint stems from the claim that the companies are infringing on patents that Paltalk purchased in 2002 from another company called HearMe.

Essentially, the patents cover sharing data between computers that are connected together so users see the same digital environment. Paltalk claims that the technology used by the defendants in their games violates these patents because players have to see the same environs simultaneously when they play an MMO title together.

The problem for the named defendants is that Paltalk managed to already score a noticeable victory on this front against Microsoft. In 2006, the company sued Microsoft over the multiplayer technology used in its Halo games. The case went to trial in Marshall, but Microsoft decided to settle with Paltalk mid-trial. While the settlement itself doesn't constitute a legal victory, it makes things more challenging for the defendants, having given credibility to the claims.

I guess I don't know they exact limitations of the patent, and some of this may be presumption on my part, but don't most multiplayer games generate the environment in your rig, and just transmit the player, npc, environmental hazard coordinate and object state data? Doesn't that mean we are not really experiencing the same environment so much as parallel copies with the same location data?

If the patent covers all that then that means that every single online multiplayer game, 1st person or 3rd, is on the hook. Maybe my mind is gone, but didn't we have games doing that for quite some time?

If Microsoft settled that means they couldn't find good prior art and didn't have a slam-dunk case of obviousness. That is indeed a grim opener for those other guys now sued.

Business is all about the money. I only mind the "patent trolls," who purchase patents only for the purpose of suing, not to use the technology. I don't know Paltalk Holdings but the link is to a video chat provider page so they might have legitimate use for the technology.

paltalk was a lame video chat service that was around 5 or 6 years ago. It was filled with guys spanking off trying to find hawt chix

EDIT FOR TRUTH

Back then, paltalk had nothing to do with multiplayer games, so Paltalk had no technology for "showing multiple players the same digital environment," only "showing streaming video to multiple people in real time."

Due to lawsuits like this I believe it is time for Texas to be sold back to Mexico. We get nothing of value from it and it is filled with dumbest bastards to ever grace the judicial system. I propose a $1 sale price.

Originally posted by Penforhire:If Microsoft settled that means they couldn't find good prior art and didn't have a slam-dunk case of obviousness. That is indeed a grim opener for those other guys now sued.

Just like Microsoft got a license from SCO because of the merit of their case?

Microsoft gave them money so they could sue Microsoft's competitors. The only thing worse then the patent system is when corporations give seed money to patent trolls to go after their more innovative competitors.

Originally posted by Demondeluxe:I would imagine that Blizzard could bury this lawsuit in money, but more likely they could just have Bobby Kotick devour Paltalk's children and sodomize their mothers until they stop the suit.

Just like Microsoft got a license from SCO because of the merit of their case?

Microsoft gave them money so they could sue Microsoft's competitors. The only thing worse then the patent system is when corporations give seed money to patent trolls to go after their more innovative competitors.

Hey! The Stupid Quote of the Day!

I bet you there additional bits of info we are missing. If it is just a server handing out data to multiple clients to develop the same environment then Doom has the original patent filing by 2 years. I can't remember if Doom actually had a server to client orientation on LAN play or if it was just P2P.

edit:

quote:

Have I mentioned how much I hate some Americans and their attempts to abuse the legal system. Every day the damn courts allow shit like this to be pushed through.

look, another one! You do realize that it has to go through the courts to find out if it is valid, right?

--Start a holding company that does basically nothing. --Most of the major tech companies buy into the company.--When some crap job company like this paltalk starts doing this nonsense the holding company goes in and starts buying stocks. They then do a hostile takeover of the company, and buy back all the rest of the stock until they own it completely. --Then fire everyone that worked there.--Then investigate everyone that was in the top 3 levels of the company.--Then sue them for anything and everything you can think of.--Make all patents and IP of any kind public domain.--Divide up any remaining assets.--Boycott any other companies of any kind that did business with them--Change the name of the holding company to the name of the last company they crushed as a reminder to the other trolls that this will not be tolerated.

After a few of these troll companies were bought out and the upper management financially ruined, the others will knock it off and go find another way to be a parasite on society.

This will never happen of course, but it would be so much fun to watch if it did.

Seriously, this is the same legal team that used a copyright argument to win a case when copyright had nothing to do with the damn situation to begin with. I'm excited to see with Acti-Blizz is gong to invent to make these ass hats GTFO.

Just like Microsoft got a license from SCO because of the merit of their case?

Microsoft gave them money so they could sue Microsoft's competitors. The only thing worse then the patent system is when corporations give seed money to patent trolls to go after their more innovative competitors.

Seems to me Kesmai back in the late 80s on the GEnie network before the internet went mainstream had a game out relatively MMO called Air Warrior which would settle all prior art concerns about this so called IP.

Originally posted by Penforhire:If Microsoft settled that means they couldn't find good prior art and didn't have a slam-dunk case of obviousness. That is indeed a grim opener for those other guys now sued.

Business is all about the money. I only mind the "patent trolls," who purchase patents only for the purpose of suing, not to use the technology. I don't know Paltalk Holdings but the link is to a video chat provider page so they might have legitimate use for the technology.

This comment was edited by Penforhire on September 17, 2009 15:11

No. All it means is that they thought settlement was less expensive than litigation. Defensibility was never in question. Hence the problem with patent trolling.

Originally posted by infernal666:Due to lawsuits like this I believe it is time for Texas to be sold back to Mexico. We get nothing of value from it and it is filled with dumbest bastards to ever grace the judicial system. I propose a $1 sale price.

You know i live in texas, and i agree 100%. Just wait till i move to Colorado first please.

Patent trolls should be pushed into the sea. They disgust me. They take ideas that have been done before they even tried to buy them, then they want to make a shitload. And is anyone in TX educated? The fact their courts allow this shit on a regular basis screams backwoods to me. Those judges need to also be "learned."

I re-read the article. the patents were purchased in 2002 but it does not state when they were formed.

However there is a good chance for the games to win this (in a different court than Texas) since the other company waited so long to pursue and I would assume did not notify them of the patent a long time ago.

1984 saw a roguelike (semi-graphical) multi-user game, called Islands of Kesmai.[12] The first "truly" graphical multi-user RPG was Neverwinter Nights, which was delivered through America Online in 1991

Does seem like there is a damn good case for prior art. I would like to have seen more information about the actual patent maybe the # of said patent so we could look this up.

MUDs, MUSHes, and MOOs would almost certainly count as prior art here. I'm not surprised the patent was granted or the suit was filed, though... I mean, really. How many lawyers out there ever played Kobra Mud (still up at http://www.kobramud.org/)?

Assuming the patents are the same as in the Microsoft case, they're filed Feb 96 and Sep 99. What they're for exactly seems somewhat unclear to me (and I don't care enough to read all of them), but the summary seems to talk about having a server collect messages from clients and process them so that fewer messages have to be sent back to the clients.